What is SoundStripe and how does it work?
SoundStripe is a royatly-free music and sound effects licensing website. They offer an Unlimted-Download subscription model for YouTubers, podcasters, wedding videographers, advertisers, filmmakers, video agencies, freelance videographers, nonprofits, gamers, and all other content creators to easily license music and sounds to use in their productions.
For an annual or monthly subscription fee, members can download as many tracks as they like to use in their videos and never need to worry about having any copyright claims or paying royalties in the future (even if you end your subscription later).
Soundstripe also has a large royalty-free sound effects library which is an optional add-on to the subscription and comes with the same flexible licensing terms.
What are the limitations of SoundStripe’s music licensing terms?
Honestly, there aren’t many limits or restrictions at all! The licensing is incredibly fair and very easy to understand.
Let’s take a look at some of the almost endless places you can use soundstripe music tracks or sound effects then look at the very few ways you can’t use them…
You CAN use SoundStripe music for:
- Youtube videos
- Social Media videos (Facebook, Instragram etc)
- Podcasts
- Wedding videos (privately or commercially)
- Advertisements and Advertising
- Short Films (Commercial and non-commercial)
- Feature Films
- Video Live streams
- Client Films
- TV shows
- TV Commercials
- Online Advertising
- Corporate videos
- Real estate videos
- Intros and outros
- Just about any other video’s you can think of really!
What you CAN’T use SoundStripe Music For:
Yes those are basically the only limitations!
Note: It should be obvious but you also can’t re-sell or distribute the artists’ tracks to other people!
Why do you need to use Royalty-Free music?
A lot of you reading this are likely professional filmmakers so you know not to just use ‘any track’ for your productions, but for those newer to music licensing we will list a few reasons why you should ALWAYS use certified royalty free music and never, ever just use any track!
If you don’t use royalty-free music then these are some potential consequences:
- Your youtube videos will be demonitized, copyright striked and/or removed
- Your social media videos will likely be removed or blocked and the post will be deleted in most cases
- Repeat offences risk entire accounts being deleted without warning
- You can be sued $10k-$1million+ by the record company or artist for using their work
- Yes, even if you use only 30 seconds of a song in a wedding video because the bride ‘loves this song’… She will post it online, the record labels will find it, she will blame you, record label sues you. Not good!
- You will look terrible to your clients – they paid you -a professional- to make them a video and it’s going to look awful when that video they posted to their company website gets taken down. They pay you to know about this stuff.
- It’s really hard to reverse the damage once it’s done. If you use a track you don’t own the rights to in a short film for example and enter it into festivals, this is on record and permanent. The owners of the track have every right to come after you for the royalties and they almost certainly will.
- You will have to pay VERY EXPENSIVE royalties if you want to keep the track in the video
- Often you have to continue paying them even after you have removed the track(s)
These are just a few reasons why you should only use music tracks you own the rights to, but in short; using un-licensed track is NEVER a good idea!
Even if you’re just producing videos for your own personal projects, it’s just never worth it to use tracks without the license. Us professional filmmakers are all about having less headaches and drama in our life so dealing with copyright claims and lawyers sounds like something to avoid!
Things we really like about SoundStripe…